Category: women
-
Half a Yellow Sun and the Whole of the Moon
Think of the starving children in Biafra. If you’re my age, you’ll remember being told that, probably over the pig-bins in the school dining room. Kids used to joke, asking if the school would send the contents of the pig-bins to Biafra. What did they know? My life changed a lot after my first visit […]
-
Seeing red lines
My partner tells me men rarely talk frankly about their feelings because they know if a bunch of men get steamed up, someone will start throwing punches. My older sisters tell me that by contrast, women’s politics is uncensored, and therefore has always had bouts of passionate screaming. That makes sense to me but I […]
-
What are the limits of freedom of speech?
<divers alarums, noises off etc> The tricky bit is that if you are a socialist and/or a feminist, there are limits to freedom of speech but they aren’t limits on who can speak, or what they can say. It’s more complex than that. I think it’s like this: freedom of speech is first and foremost […]
-
The Goldilocks Zone
This is a road-map of the “sex-based rights v gender-identity” conversation that’s raging out there… What? Oh – apparently, a lot of people haven’t really had that conversation yet, beyond a few comments on stories in the press. Okay sisters, we have a job to do… Otherwise known as the “Circumstellar Habitable Zone”, there is […]
-
To a good man
You know that cry, “It’s not all men”? Actually, it is all men. I know it, and I know you can’t entirely solve it – not alone, anyway, and men aren’t brought up to be good at thinking together. It would help if more men could get their heads round exactly what it is they […]
-
I’ve been and gone and done it now
Five years of frustration, trying to get “the left” to sort out the appalling ignorance of lefty MPs, activists and groups on the women’s rights issue, on what’s happening to vulnerable women and girls, and to our kids – now, finally, the problems we’ve been trying to amplify have “gone mainstream”. Most people at least […]
-
Left, right and left behind
This article is, ultimately, about the row about ‘drag’ (!) which I think offers a good opportunity to think about the left/right confusion in the women’s campaign… Is ‘queer theory’ left wing? Is ‘gender critical’ theory right wing? How many people are sufficiently academic, sufficiently fond of critical reading and sufficiently practiced in critical thinking […]
-
“Cross-dressing” is a dodgy concept
“DRAG” supposedly means “dressing up as girls”. Is “dressing up as girls” also what pantomime dames are doing? Are they the same thing? Are you thinking ‘oh come on, it’s obvious…?’ But what is? These performances we used to call night-club drag acts have spilled over into so many aspects of our lives. According to […]
-
Fed up with long, complicated blog articles?
I had a couple of complaints last week that my blogs are getting long – sorry, here’s one for you – it’s so short that it fits in the header pic, so you can just share it like a meme, if you want. Please send it to your MP – too many of them still […]
-
Macy Days and UK Ways
Or: What’s with ‘the hostage video’? Look what happened – first, we had a clear and refreshing statement, made by an adult women, voluntarily discussing ‘The Issue’ on a show she presumably volunteered to go on. She seems quite relaxed, and happy to chat on volatile issues like the US flag, and what a woman […]
Kay Green 